Final week: the end is already here

I went to the university this Tuesday; finalised last paperwork and had some quick advice on how to manage word count in my dissertation so I stay below the 9 or 10K word limit mark. Just want to make sure, I will remove the danger of getting penalised in case the word count does matter.
I have also been working on my practical stuff with an odd interruption now and again to sort either the submission materials or things related to exposition. I have also asked a friend of mine to start proof reading some dissertation material which is a great help.

Tomorrow is 12th of May and my first submission is due by 4pm. So far I have been concentrating on getting my practical stuff ready. I was not a 100% sure on what I should concentrate so chose to improve an overall environment art and then just try and implement everything in to a gameplay video created by Adobe After Effects since  most of the lecturers seem to always stress the interactivy part of the art within games.

In my opinion an updated environment art (see image below) looks better now as I have polished the overall look and introduced a lot of details, like texture, various patterns etc (see images below).

Overall look of the game art (above)

Texture application method using Emboss Layer (image above)

A lot of the basic texture came through the use of digital brushes that replicate traditional media look (image above). 

I have used Texture  brush settings to give canvas look (see image  above)and stayed away from applying texture on top of everything mainly because in previous tests it looked quite unnatural and too overpowering. 

To address the composition seen on a screen during gameplay, a variety of different shapes were introduced in the form of trees and bushes (marked in yellow), a rolling forest and foreground edge (marked in red) to give more variety and guidance for the eye. The forest line has also been intersected by a few curvy cloud lines (marked in green).
The onscreen image had also been broken in to four tone bands which balance an overall view (top and bottom): the lightness of the sky is counterbalanced by the dark middle ground at the bottom of the screen and protruding shadowy foreground elements are offset by the very bright clouds at the top of the screen. (see image below)

I have also finished UI design. Not a 100% happy with it but I am really pressed for time and this is the best I can come up with (see image below).

UI in game with inventory window closed (image above)

At the moment still working on the gameplay video, but I am sure it will not be fully completed by Monday 4pm. I chose to concentrate on showing the art rather than animations (e.g. character walking) and gameplay since the whole idea of my project is the about the look of the art and prove that it can work within a game environment. Animations would be a great thing to have but I do not have time to complete it atm.

That brings me to another point- presentation and an exposition next week. I will try to complete and polish the gameplay video for both of them. That means that I will continue doing my practical work after the dissertation hand in is done. I hope having things completed or nearly completed would help with my presentation as well as exhibition as I will be marked for both of them and I would like to get the best mark I can. I would love to have a chance to have an option of doing Masters later on.

Hardly any Dissertation work had been done this week. I managed to get some parts proofread by my friend for whom I am really grateful and I have already fixed grammar and spelling mistakes he has found. I will go back to dissertation after tomorrows hand in and will work on it until Wednesday morning or noon before sending it to be printed and bound.


I have also moved forward with promotional stuff I need to have for exposition. On Wednesday I have ordered 100 mini business cards with a range of different designs taken from my final project piece and a few postcards (see images below). Both of them should arrive by the 16th of May so it gives plenty time before the exhibition.

 I have also bought a printing credit from photobox for a poster size 30"x20". I will order it on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. That should give me enough time to receive it by Thursday morning. I am planning on having a large poster at the top showing off the game environment (have not made up my mind if I will have UI also displayed or not) and then a few A3 posters explaining a little my process and maybe some zoomed in examples to show off my brushwork etc (as the ones seen in this blogpost) At the moment also considering to dedicate one poster for my aim and objectives so people can have a quick look and read what my honours year project is about. It is a bit confusing what space I will have since I will be exhibiting at HMC and there is no detailed info about the wall space allocated when exhibiting there but this is a rough plan I have made (see image below).

And The Conclusion: how do I feel about my honours year project?...
I feel really happy that I have chosen this topic because it is of interest to me as well as I think it is one of the next steps the 2D videogame art is already taking (Braid by Jonathan Blow, Amanita design games and this month’s new release from Ubisoft 'The Child of Light'). I think the art of 2D video games is still evolving and has a long way to go. I feel it is time to try and give more choice and perhaps more quality for the videogame players. With my project I have only scratched the very surface of the topic and there is so much still left to explore. Feeling passionate about it has definitely made me more determined and more stubborn to try and do my very best, but at this moment in time I feel very tired and need to have a little break to rest and to think what I am going to do next. I still love videogames and certainly want to do something meaningful. Around 7 years ago I have made a conscious choice to change my life and pursue my goal of creating art again and I am not done yet. Hell!!! I  have just started and have a long way to go and I know, I will find things to do: I want to continue improving my art, learn a bit of programming  which would hopefully help me to create my own games and I will look for likeminded people to team up and create things; things that matter.

Playing catch up with practical work

This week I have started sorting all the files and folders for my 12th of May submission disk: printing game concept, asset list documents, learning contract etc etc... Just want to make sure that everything is there and I do not forget something important. Also it will make me feel better having things ready rather than worrying that I still need to do ‘all of that stuff’ before the final hand it. I really want to get everything else out of the way as soon as possible and just concentrate on my practical work and then burn everything on to DVD an hour or 2 before the submission and drop it in to a submission box before the deadline.

This Thursday I had 2 meetings with Simone. She has finally finished reading my dissertation draft and gave feedback. I still need to change the layout: move Contextual Review part back in to Methodology section, write a new chapter on Walter Benjamin have a look at 'technological determinism' add more info here and there and  have a look at Richard Eldridge book "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art", Martin Rieser book " The Mobile Audienc. Media Art and Mobile Technologies" as well as Oliver Gray book ”Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion" which I still did not have time to do it. My first submission in a week’s time so I decided that the dissertation stuff has been taking way too much time now and I'm going to leave it until practical submission is done.  Only then I will fix the document as much as I can for Friday the 16th of May. I will most likely have to go back to practical work again after that as I strongly doubt I can finish the gameplay video. I need to have that video for my exhibition at least. It would be really good to have it ready for the presentation on Monday 20th as well.

I will be meeting Simone this Tuesday to get last paperwork signed and then just concentrate on doing as much artwork and animation as possible. Also, I am hoping to find some time to look in to the promotion stuff like business cards and poster printing. I will give my best shot and hope for the best. That is all I can do.

Semester 1 submission week is over

On Monday I have submitted my Concept Development Document and Pre Production Portfolio as my Semester 1 submission and on Friday handed in my Ethics form.

Still not sure if my Concept Development Document had been written well enough. I do find it hard to talk or pinpoint things that inspire me, because often I am not even sure myself what exactly inspires me. The only way I can describe it is: all inspires me. Things enter my head, stay there while mixing with everything else I have seen, heard or thought about and then it just comes out one way or another. Sometimes I don't think I have control of what happens and how.

Pre Production Portfolio submission was much more forward. I have submitted all the practical work I have done during Semester 1: Photoshop brushes set together with media tests as well as some imaginary game 'screenshots' (see earlier blog posts). I do feel I wish I had more time to complete it all I have intended and the way I have intended but I feel I did not have enough time. I will try and catch up with as much as I can until Semester 2 really kicks in. I feel I need more research on art fundamentals, some more tests in digital painting and design of game UI research but at the same time I wish I had more time to draw and paint rather than read books about these things. However I cannot deny that reading made me understand better my own project. It certainly helped me realize where my project and the research supposed to ‘sit’ within the context of video games and art. Also, in my mind I know how the art for this project supposed to look, but I have not achieved that look yet.

Also, because it takes forever for me to come up with any reasonable ideas for game design I think it would be wise to try and cooperate on this project with someone else. Next Monday will discuss with my tutor possibilities of getting other people (coders or game designers) on board to help me ground this project. I feel I need some sort of structure on what is needed from a technical and design point of view. I think it would give more grounding to my project because I don't feel I have enough experience in developing games (Only year 2 Entertainment Design group project, then Samsug challenge 2013, two semesters of group work as part of Abertay Game Developers society and a peak past peoples shoulders at TAG games.)
All in all I don’t feel confident about starting my work on final peace if I was doing it next week. It does feel as I have not finished preproduction phase yet. I wish I had more hand on experience on game asset production. But perhaps it is just a midyear panic period that I have to move past.

Preparing work for submission week

I have been really busy this week since on Monday is a submission day and I have been working on my Concept Design document and Pre Production portfolio.

Had a meeting on Monday with my mentor and she gave me advice on different ways on how to approach the Concept Design document. I am nearly finished with it and still wonder if what I have written would be satisfactory. Talking about inspiration is always hard for me. I have also followed her advice and took a 'Visual  Culture' book by Richard Howells* from library to help me a little bit in describing some of the art works that I thought were most inspirational for my project so far.

Also this week in between getting things ready for submission I have also managed to complete my last game 'screenshot' that somewhat had been inspired by Jon Klassen art.
(Jon Klassen on Tumblr: http://jonklassen.tumblr.com/ )

The underwater snake has been inspired by a  Lindworm and its head is a direct reference from a pictish stone that is being exhibited at the McManus Art Gallery in Dundee. (See image below)

final layout sketch

final colour version

I am not sure if I am really satisfied with the final result. I think, I should certainly spend more time on the image overall and especially give more attention to the water as well as the stones at the bottom of the sea. It all looks a bit too uniform and boring. Perhaps a slightly different colour scheme would have also worked better. UI is still a very simple one as I did not have time to do any research on this topic yet.

The actual submission deadline is on Monday I will call it finished as I do not have time to do anything else with it.

*    Howells, R. 2003. Visual Culture. Cambridge: Polity
Book is divided in to two parts: Theory and Media.

Theory part mentions a number of theories that can be used to understand and analyse visual text.
Iconology concerns itself with subject-matter or content of visual texts. There are different levels of analysis: like a common sense level but also a symbolic one where symbols are disguised as everyday objects within a visual text. That means that not always 'what-you-see-is-what-you-get'. Some meaning may be hidden from view if the viewer is not familiar with the symbols or their meanings. Also, a visual text has a power of revealing basic attitudes of nation, period, lass, religion etc... all through the work of an artist who communicates it often unconsciously.
Formalism concerns itself with form becoming the meaning of the visual texts therefore it does not concern itself with 'what' is being represented but 'how'. This theory is great for analysis of modern and abstract art with no subject matter. It uses 5 points of analysis (1. the rhythm of the line, 2. mass, 3. space, 4. light and shade, 5. colour) in communication of emotion through visual art.
Traditional art history. Art and artist should be analysed within the context of the history because history and art knowledge influenced art evolution. Also, it influences nowadays the commercial value of an artwork, where value can be created for a piece of art if it's tought that it has been created by someone famous.
Ideology investigates ideological approaches to analysis of visual culture. It suggests that visual texts as cultural texts inevitably betray the values of the cultures in which they were created. Also, some theorist (Berger) claim that art experts deliberately obscure the visual evidence of the past in order to justify the politics of the present.
Semiotic theory can also be useful in analysis of visual culture. It analyses connection between sign, signifier and signified. It suggests that signifier can be interpreted as an empty vessel until it is filled with meaning in order to signify. (e.g. advertisements that don't sell sell the product but a lifestyle)
Hermeneutic analyses interpretative approach which acknowledges that there are differences between literal and intended meaning therefore there can be plenty of ambiguity within visual text. It also suggests that there is a connection between education and culture: culture grows and changes.

Media part of the book is concerned with representation of reality within fine art, photography, film and TV as well as discusses if  'new media' is actually that new or is it only a different systems to deliver what is already there (e.g. still and moving images etc.)

Actually I did found this book useful and now after reading it properly I find myself analysing more not only visual text but everything else for 'hidden' meanings. It certainly made me 'see' more then before.